Vacation and more!

Hi Everyone,

It is the middle of November, and there are only 4.5 weeks of school left!  Crazy, I know... 
The pace and stress of school is picking up, and there are tests to be graded, spanish lessons to study for, and lots of other things to stress us out.  We recently had vacation, so we are in it for the long haul now, with no breaks until Christmas.

Speaking of vacation...it was wonderful.  I think it was great to get out of the school environment and to go see somewhere completely new.  Rachel, Rebekah, and I all headed to Santa Cruz, where we visited with some missionaries there.  They live about 3 hours out of the city, and for all intents and purposes, it is the jungle.  We got to spend a lot of time out and about, seeing all kinds of fun things that the jungle offers.  I especially enjoyed riding around in a sweet open-air Jeep from circa 1970!

After spending a few days in San Ramon with the missionaries there, we headed back into Santa Cruz to see the sights there for a couple days.  I enjoyed seeing a new city, and the weather in Santa Cruz was amazing.  Our hotel also had a pool, so we definitely spent some time soaking up the sun and splashing around! 

In order to get back to Cochabamba after our vacation was over, we had to take a 10 hour bus ride.  It was interesting to see the sights as we passed through different regions of Bolivia.  We were sweltering hot in the jungle, then eventually climbed up thousands of feet to cross through the mountains and back into the Cochabamba valley.  I had to close my eyes a few times during the ride, as we were careening around corners in a double decker bus, with no guardrail to stop us from falling hundreds of feet down the mountains!  But overall, the trip was an enjoyable experience, and we were grateful for the time off.

I would just like to end this post by asking for prayer for health.  There are a large number of teachers sick right now with some pretty nasty infections...parasites, amoebas, and E-Coli, to name a few.  I have e-coli, and there seems to be a little outbreak of it amongst the teachers.  So in addition to praying for healing and patience, please pray that we can figure out where we are picking all of these nasty things up.

Thanks for reading,

-Sarah